2007 White bud sheng puerh from Norbu, a tea that I started out loving when it was young and smoky, but that has not aged in a very interesting way. I come back to it from time to time, and today, I'm having a nice session with hints of the delicate floral notes that have usually been present (when the smokiness fades after a few infusions), a little earthy, a little smoky, mellow and pleasing.

DVS wrote:2003 Sun Yi Shun Liu An from Finepuer. This has a nice sweet aftertaste that lingerers for awhile, I enjoyed this tea.

After,reading your post I went to finepuer thinking I might pick up a basket to hold onto for a while. It's now $100. Wow I think it was $35 the last time I looked.

I would have bought a couple of baskets at $35! How long ago was that? Have you sampled any of The Chinese Tea shops or EoT Lui An? I just recently started drinking Lui An and have been really ejoying it! So far I have tried Samples Teas and FinePuer.

They want way to much from the Chinese tea shop like eight hundred dollars for there 92 . EOTs is good I've had ones around that age with better initial flavor. But the it lasts for days of brewing and the flavor gets better as it goes on.

first zijuan tea for me tonight. very compressed and very cheap, i really enjoyed its simplicity: it tasted only bitter at the beginning, then appeared a hint of peach aroma and, after a few brews, a realistic almond paste flavor with a hint of melon. It's new experience that i enjoyed much more than my stomach did.

Fall 2010 Zi Juan, Yunnan Purple Beauty mao cha from Norbu, a smoky/earthy/sweet/floral friendly loose young sheng. Already a half a dozen infusions into this one, and the smokiness nearly gone, and sweet floral fruity highlights are coming to the fore. I drank this one for the first time nearly 2 years ago, and then set it aside because I had too many puerhs open at once. It's not lost anything in the intervening time. Mmmmm. I'm infusing it in the office, but am not sure I'll be sharing this one up & down the hall very often. So tasty.

A Petr Novak shiboridashi and Seigan blue cup are sharing the honors this evening.

2012 Dayi LongyinIt's very different from 2011 Dayi Jin. Soup pale yellow colour and texture is much thinner than 2011 Jin. I wouldn't say it's a bad tea, but I question whether it should have the same price tag as Jin.Taste profile reminded me of Dayi Qing Tuo 502 and a 2002 Dayi Raw Brick (sorry no picture yet!) I recently tried.

This site said the leaves are from Menghai area. Probably the 2005 Qing Tuo and 2002 Brick also used material from the same area so they all taste similar.

XZH kuzhushan ’07 sample from Houde today. It tasted apricot flavored beer with some ersatz sourness. A good point is it delivers a very nice salivation effect that goes with some freshness, good mouthfeel. The bad point is for a 6 years old sheng there isn’t the slightest trace of age taste, so if you’re looking for a cake to store a few years in order to get some nice chenwei/umami i'm not shure it is worth spending $175 on this cake!

There's a reason that cake is still left over. Anyways, the fruitish taste *is* how a jinggu ages in the near term, and I like that about them, compared to Mengkus that don't do anything but deepen their original flavors, lose the fresh flowers and fruit and be a little muted.

I'm surprised that you didn't mention the durability thing. It lasted longer than 4-6 interesting brews?

I was told the 1999 version of this tea is "Big Green Tree" (綠大樹) which tastes a bit, but not very much better than this.There are two versions of BGT and I never tried either versions. I can only talk about this 2001 Yiwu.

The soup got a lovely red hue and I'm bit surprise by its little hint of bitterness which I normally don't associate it with Yiwu. The texture is fair thick and some huigan. Overall, I would say it got backbone.

shah82 wrote:There's a reason that cake is still left over. Anyways, the fruitish taste *is* how a jinggu ages in the near term, and I like that about them, compared to Mengkus that don't do anything but deepen their original flavors, lose the fresh flowers and fruit and be a little muted.

I'm surprised that you didn't mention the durability thing. It lasted longer than 4-6 interesting brews?

I only brewed it about 10 times, I didn’t count actually, too many shengs yesterday... I'll brew it again and more than i did to get your point… If think that when it became blander the salivation effect was stronger and there was more bitterness too, it probably has more to give in the future, maybe that's what you meant

About the aged taste I have exaggerated a little bit: there is some caramelized apple flavor at the beginning, but it’s not the kind of aged taste that I associate with umami, and i can be wrong on that… the tea is ok, but it’s not what I’m looking for, and less at this price...

By the way, I take this rare opportunity to tell you I’ve only tried one pasha until now and it tasted plaster and a sort of very bland watered hot chocolate, like a medicine i had when I was a child: smecta… and soap too… just to say i just can't talk about pasha…

Pasha is for aging. Any of that sort that's of any strength is rather polarizing in the tobacco sense. They age like LBZ, though, so if you can get an old one, or can buy a new, strong one and wait...

I suppose it does need to be said that $175 for that Kuzhushan is well within appropriate pricing, and could even be considered cheap. All of those JingGus Sanhetang did that year were pretty close to the best you could get, so someone who likes JingGus may well find that price appropriate. I, along with most other people I suspect, prefer the JingGu from Yangta, which do have delicate wood notes in my care. Kuzhushan is nice, but it's only just nice, unless some other maker has found more dynamic and charismatic leaves.